Playing Pretend
by serpensortia1
Summary: Do you believe in miracles? Harry does. Afterall, he saw one happen right in front of his eyes; his father came back from the dead.


_Disclaimer: Once again, all credit for Harry Potter and other characters go to JKR and all of the associating companies that lay their own little bit of claim to the name.   
A/N: I'd tell you more about this fic, but that would give the game away. Let's just say that the war against Voldemort has not and is not going well and that there are more ways to meet your dead father than simply going back in time._

**Playing Pretend**

  
  
The room was light, bright and airy – the walls a pale cream, but that was ok with Harry. He might like Gryffindor's colours, but really, when it came to painting rooms you can't have red and gold plastered everywhere; that's just tacky. Still, he had red bed sheets and plenty of wizarding photos and posters up on the walls to stop them becoming stale. He'd grown attached to this place…it was all his. Even the view through the window – his.  
  
At first, having something to himself was very uncomfortable; it was such an alien feeling to not have to think what someone else would think about how everything looked. He could be as messy as he liked. At school, you couldn't scatter about much because you shared everything, bar a bed and a trunk with at least four other people and at the Dursleys, he'd never had anything to himself, however much he liked to think that the cupboard under the stairs and the loose floorboard were his when he was living there.  
  
He wasn't living there now though. He was eighteen, he was free from everything – including horrible relatives and evil lords. Yes, Voldemort was gone; literally and figuratively. He was no longer in the land of the living, wasn't biding his time again, wasn't feeding off unicorn blood or…or Wizard blood – he was finally dead. That meant at the same time, that the burdens on everyone's shoulders had disappeared. Harry wasn't the only one that was free now; everyone was and that, to his mind, was the best feeling in the world, topping even winning the Quidditch Cup and watching Voldemort die.  
  
But there was one thing that he wasn't sure it could top. Lots of things had happened, horrible things to people who he loved…people were gone now, he knew that, he'd dwelt on that for quite a while. Lavender Brown, Cedric Diggory, Professor McGonagall, Dobby, Fleur Delacour, Vernon Dursley, Ernie Mc Millian, Ludo Bagman, Cho Chang, Buckbeak…Professor Dumbledore, Hagrid, Ginny Weasley and…and Sirius. Sirius wasn't there anymore. There were other people who'd gone from his life as well, people who he didn't like or get on with; he was sure that any wartime casualties were tragic, but he did find it hard to care about the panic stricken face with tears billowing down its cheeks, blood stained robes clinging to the core of the being as it screamed for mercy as the Dementor swooped low on the person that was known as Peter Pettigrew.  
  
He deserved it. Everyone said so. Sirius would have said so. Remus said so. So did Hermione and Ron. Even Harry's father had said so himself.  
  
Now that was solid proof of the truth of that statement, Harry grinned to himself. Seeing his father alive and well was the one thing that no amount of relief could top to make him happy. It had happened so suddenly, right after Voldemort had finally snuffed himself out. James Potter was alive, he hadn't been killed!  
  
The story was a long and highly complicated one indeed. That night at Godric's Hollow, Voldemort had turned up wanting to kill Harry. Just Harry, not his parents. James had been stunned, left unconscious and bleeding on the kitchen floor whilst Voldemort wound his way up to the nursery. Lily had tried to stop Voldemort from getting to Harry, but was killed for her pains as she refused to let go of the child and it had been easier to kill her than risk her getting in the way again. Besides, she was a mudblood, nothing of any importance was being lost in Voldemort's eyes. So when the killing curse had smashed back on him, Voldemort was more than weak – and he needed too keep himself alive.  
  
He'd taken Harry's Dad's soul with him that night. The body of James Potter was indeed dead, but his soul had been taken somewhere else than the proverbial heavens. He'd gone with Voldemort, been sealed inside of him for so many years…and then, when Voldemort died, he was released!  
  
It was like a miracle, the _ perfect _ happy ending for Harry. It made his insides bubble from the happiness every time he thought about it. Which was everyday now, because everyday he saw his Dad. He lived with his Dad, breathed the same air as him, ate the same food and had someone to call 'Dad' everyday. And his Dad loved him, properly loved him.  
  
Sirius had done this in the same sort of way before he… He'd write letters to Harry and talk to him through the fires, just always telling him that he loved him like he was his own son. Course, he never spelt that out, but Harry knew it. It had taken him a while to see the undertones in every letter and conversation, but he'd got there in the end. And in the end…Sirius had gone. Worse than dead they say. Some people deserve that sort of thing, everyone said it. Sirius would have said it about Pettigrew if…if the other Dementor hadn't…at the same time…  
  
Harry shook his head, clearing it as there was a knock on his bedroom door. He called to say it was ok, and his face lit up as his Dad came wondering in, carrying a goblet of a foul tasting potion.  
  
It was enough to stop Harry from thinking about Sirius, so he was almost glad to see it. Almost.  
  
"Ergh – not that again, please…" He deliberately pulled an ugly face at his father.  
  
"Yes that again and no, I can't just leave it on the side for you to take later; you chucked the other one out of the window."  
  
Harry was on the verge of getting a cold and had a miserably sore throat at the time. He thought he was developing a bit of a cough as well, but held back from mentioning this to his father in case the potion for that was more disgusting than this one. It was peach coloured, really thin and pale and tasted unlike anything Harry had had before. The only thing that even compared was getting a taste of Remus' wolfsbane potion by accident once when the goblet hadn't been cleaned properly. Harry was glad he wasn't a werewolf after tasting that particular substance.  
  
His father shoved the goblet in his hand. "Drink it." He moved Harry's hand up to his mouth, only for Harry to back away simply at the smell. "Harry! You're worse than a child sometimes! Here –" A spare hand pinched Harry's nose "OK, down in one – on the count of three. One -" The goblet was quickly thrust onto Harry's lips and the potion poured down his throat.  
  
He spluttered as he swallowed the stuff...well, he didn't have a choice, it was swallow or choke. He gasped and glared at James. "That's not fair or funny! Oh gross…that tastes so…"  
  
Making the potion ten times worse, was that no food or drink could be consumed for an hour after taking the thing. Harry liked the wizarding lifestyle, it suited him and he'd almost been able to start out as a new person when he'd first stepped onto platform nine and three quarters for the first time, but he felt that maybe Muggles had the right idea with tablets. Sure, they could taste nasty, but at least you got to swallow most of them with water.  
  
"I know and I'm sorry, but your throat does sound better now."  
  
"You think?"  
  
"You just shouted at me, I'd say so."  
  
James smiled at Harry briefly, before moving over to sit opposite him. People had always told Harry how much he looked like his father, but he couldn't really comprehend that until now. Looking at him now, it was like he was seeing a doppelganger, or at least an artistic vision of what Harry Potter would look like in twenty five years time. Young, but with a few more lines, the odd grey hair sticking out and skin looking a little less spotty and more…saggy.  
  
"Listen Harry, you know that in four days Halloween will be coming up…I was thinking, and talking to Remus about it and we thought we might…go and see Lily's – your mother's- grave. I don't know whether that sounds like the sort of thing you want to do and I'm not offended if it's not and Remus will understand, but the offer is there for you if you want to come along with us."  
  
Harry sat still for a minute or two to think about this one. His gut feeling told him to say yes immediately, because it was his mother. He might not have memories of her or have first hand evidence of her personality, but half the reason he was still alive to this day was down to her. But at the same time…it wasn't going to be a pleasant thing to do. He'd never seen his mother's grave, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. His father had come back to him and part of him…a small part of Harry wanted to believe that his mother would do the same. But that was pure fantasy, it wasn't going to happen by any stretch of the imagination…it had been a miracle that he had his father back and Harry didn't reckon that two miracles would happen in his lifetime. There was also the fact that Remus and his Dad would be mourning their loss…that could be uncomfortable. Adults…they, they seemed strange when they mourned for people. It didn't look natural.  
  
But it was his mother, Harry's mind screamed and that thing won out. Nothing was comfortable when it came to death, he knew that, but this sort of thing was not something he was going to be disrespectful enough to decline.  
  
"Course I want to come. I mean, it's my Mum. It's because of her that I'm here and she left that spell to protect me and everything."  
  
His Dad smiled at him, looking proud. Harry smiled back at the silent praise.  
  
"How the hell were you raised by a Dursley hmm?"  
  
"Well, I did my best to be anti everything they were, so we owe them much of my personality." He looked at his Dad with a bit of concern, when his smile had faded without even acknowledging his poor joke. "You going to be ok going to see Mum's grave?"  
  
"I'll be fine, don't you worry. And if I do fall to pieces, you and Remus will be there to drag me back home." There was an underlying truth and seriousness to that, Harry thought. His Dad had never been to see his Mum's grave before, he hadn't been released from Voldemort's seal until the March of Harry's last term at Hogwarts. "We won't be there all day though, I thought we'd come back here and have a proper Halloween feast with Remus, before going and scaring a few Muggles doing Trick or Treat – all in honor of your mother of course, who loved going around the village at Halloween and doing just that."  
  
Harry laughed. "You wouldn't need costumes for that; just go to people's houses dressed like you normally are."  
  
"No, it was great! We transfigured one another to have claws and tails, fur and all that sort of stuff. Lily used to like being done up as a cat – whiskers an' all."  
  
"That's not scary!" Harry scoffed.  
  
"No, but she wanted something less frightening than the rest of us. Maybe I'll do you up as a cat – a big ginger one like your friend Hermione's. Like your mother used to look like…" The sentence trailed off into nowhere.  
  
Harry thought that Halloween would probably never be the same for his Father, they'd all be nothing like they used to be. However much he would try to make it right, it would always be tainted by the idea that this was when his wife died. "Why do all of the holidays have to be spoiled by a death?" He blurted out without thinking.  
  
Sirius died at Christmas. Professor Dumbledore at Easter. His mother at Halloween. Ginny on his birthday. It just wasn't fair.  
  
There was a sound outside Harry's bedroom door, that prevented James from answering that question, but in retrospect, Harry decided it was probably a rhetorical one anyway. "That'll be Remus; he borrowed some text books of mine. Is it alright for him to come up if he wants?"  
  
"Sure, that'll be fine." His Dad smiled at him and wondered out of the door, when Harry remembered something. "Dad!" His head reappeared again, from the staircase, peering back at Harry. "Unless he's got a cold, I don't want to have anymore of that damn potion!"  
  
Then he disappeared, and Harry almost tuned out the voices coming from down the stairs, in favor of looking out of the window instead. Hedwig was still out sending a letter to Ron; she was getting older these days and took a little more time to do these sorts of things.  
  
***  
  
Remus Lupin sighed in defeat, looking miserably at the nurse in front of him, before looking back through the glass into the pale cream room.  
  
"No improvement?" He asked, knowing it was useless anyway. The nursed shook her head.  
  
He could hear the words coming from the room; 'why do all of the holidays have to be spoiled by a death?'.  
  
"I wish I knew that, Harry…" Came another voice to the left hand side of him, that of Ron Weasley who was looking into the room in much the same way as Remus was. To the right of Ron, clinging onto his arm was Hermione Granger, her eyes reddened as they always were when they visited, perhaps more so this time due to the...circumstances. 

Sometimes Harry would be in bed when they came, sometimes he'd look out of the window and smile and the rest of the time…Harry talked to an invisible man and lived in an entirely different world to them. A world where Voldemort had been defeated and James Potter had risen from the dead. It seemed like after Sirius and Dumbledore's death, Harry's mind just couldn't take anymore. He'd been almost killed in the same battle that took Dumbledore and when he finally came round…he knew Dumbledore was gone and all that had happened before it, but he started asking how James was.  
  
'Dad! Unless he's got a cold, I don't want anymore of that damn potion!'  
  
Harry's room at St Mungo's drew quiet again. Harry looked at the door for a moment, before looking dreamily out of the window. He was locked in his own mind. In his very own world.  
  
Remus drew a deep breath and knocked on the door, before getting an affirmative from Harry and opening it. They all walked in and Harry grinned at them, eyes sparkling with delight when he saw Ron and Hermione.  
  
"I didn't know you two were coming! Dad never said anything!"  
  
They all played pretend with Harry Potter these days. They rarely tried to tell him the truth; it upset him, he would destroy his room in fits of rage, before shouting things about them all being left over death eaters in disguise. He seemed happy in himself the way he was…and nobody was going to break that happiness by informing him of the recent deaths of Severus Snape, Molly Weasley and Hermione's parents. His mind created this from less than that after all, nobody dare tell the boy who lived that the wizarding world was losing to the darkness without him as a glimmer of hope in their lives.  
  
"Oh Harry!" Hermione suddenly ran at Harry, before hugging him for all she was worth, sobbing on his shoulder.  
  
Sometimes, they all thought it was hard not to wish that they were just the same as Harry Potter and living in his world. 

***

[Edited 16/02/03 : Extremely minor changes made to spelling and grammar.]   



End file.
